Linux, continued

[dualstow]

Separate question:

What would be a good distro for someone who just wants firefox and a clock? I mean that almost literally. I wouldn’t mind installing a couple chat apps and some note-taking software that I already use on my other devices. No graphics manipulation, nor even photos, no banking. I might like to plug in an external hard drive if my main desktop blows up. (Getting a disk burner to work in Linux is probably beyond my ken).

I sometimes search “Best Linux distro for grandparents” but the problem with that is that the answer is usually “Pick something you’re good at maintaining.” Well, I’m almost too young to be a grandparent and I will be the one “maintaining” as there are no kids. And I don’t want to do much if any command line stuff beyond installation. If something goes wrong, I’m just going to reinstall everything and start anew.

More background: In the deep past, I’ve had limited success with Mint (thanks PS) and LXLE (thanks, Jack Jones and other kind souls here at gyro). At some point Mint failed to update and I just gave up. That was on a laptop built expressly for Linux but it had other problems, like it would never wake from Suspend. LXLE is still running on my Dad’s Sony Vaio, albeit slowly, and I use it when I visit.

I also bought a $300 HP notebook new to put GalliumOS on it. that worked, but I never got wifi on it, even with a dongle and some help from the guy who wrote the article about putting Gallium on the damn thing! (Gallium was designed for Chromebooks, really). I was able to use the thing with an ehernet adapter, but haven’t touched it in years.

There’s a computer shop in the neighborhood and I want to give the guy some business before he retires. I figure I could buy a $200 laptop and if I’m miserable I could put Windows back on it. But I would like to have a machine that is not a Mac or Windows. (I do have an Android phone that I love). I’m really interested in Fedora, and I do realize that what I’m doing is kind of like taking a $2,000 e-bike that I got for free and saying, “I just want to walk it around the block. I’m not actually going to ride it.” I have no plan to use its full powers. But, I have the bug again — bad choice of words.

[Pointedstick]

Pretty much anything will be reasonably robust if you're barely using it, so you want a distro that minimizes built-in faults in its choice of package management. That's not Mint, as it the end, Mint always breaks upon upgrade, at some point. That's typically why people stop using it.

I would probably recommend the latest Ubuntu LTS release (e.g 22.04) for this purpose. If you want to use Linux on newer hardware with less drama, Fedora workstation or Fedora KDE (if you really prefer KDE, as I obviously do ) is a bit better.

I would recommend staying away from Debian, Arch, openSUSE, or anything else directly based on them.

[dualstow]

That’s good info, thank you. Kind of glad it’s not just me who had trouble with Mint upgrades.

[whatchamacallit]

I used to say Linux would never be mainstream.

Then came Android and Chromebook. That is mostly all I use now.

I love the idea of being able to compile all your own software but it was never practical for me.

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

[sweetbthescrivener]

I would recommend Pop!_OS. I installed it on a whim after seeing a bunch of great reviews and now I am completely a fan.

There is a company called System 76 that sells computers with Linux preinstalled. Instead of using a default Linux system they made their own variant based on Ubuntu.

Why I like it:

1.Dead easy to install as long as it recognized your hardware, but that is true of all Linux distros.

2. It is maintained by a for-profit company and tied to a product, which to me means they have a strong incentive to keep it maintained and be responsive to user feedback. I just like the idea of the combination of a free operating system and a company that answers to its users.

3. They install the bare minimum of applications, trusting that the user knows what they need so there is no bloat.

4. Otherwise, easy to update, and they have their own 'store,' I guess you could call it when all apps are free. Very easy to use.

5. Also, if you have Nvidia graphics, they have a separate OS download just for you to make the process of installing on computers with Nvidia graphics that much easier.


Also the desktop looks good and is intuitive to use. That's it. A very pleasant surprise. What can I say, I'm a fan.

https://pop.system76.com/

[dualstow]

I would recommend Pop!_OS.

I almost bought a system76 laptop in the mid-aughts. Went with a similar company, ZaReason, which is probably now defunct.
System76 machines still look expensive to me. I think they’re more for people who are doing much more. But, I did look into Pop OS over the summer and heard good things about it. Thank you, Scriv.

[Pointedstick]

Pop!_OS is unfortunately likely about to go through some rough times. Its authors at System76 finally got tired with fighting with the GNOME people to make their GNOME fork work well enough for their tastes, and instead of migrating to KDE Plasma which is flexible enough for their customization needs, they've decided to build an entirely new desktop environment from scratch, using a different programming language and a very new UI toolkit that is itself in the early stages of development. And they're currently burning their bridges with GNOME people via public feuding, so now they can't easily go back.

Unfortunately I don't foresee it going well for them. Doing this stuff right is incredibly hard and resource-intensive, and KDE and GNOME have 25 years of it under their belt at this point. The System76 folks can probably get to 70-80% complete in 2 years, but the remaining bit is what takes another 20. And this isn't even their area of expertise; they're historically a hardware vendor, not a full-stack software development outfit.

I expect them to realize this error and migrate to KDE Plasma in 2-4 years, if they survive all the trauma that's in store for them on their current path.

[dualstow]

Does GNOME have an office full of people working on it, or is it just volunteers from around the world who have day jobs? Or both?

[sweetbthescrivener]

@Pointedstick

Holy cow. Thanks for the heads up. So for a casual user like me you would recommend Ubuntu? I saw you advised against Debian which I was leaning towards.

"I would recommend staying away from Debian, Arch, openSUSE, or anything else directly based on them."

Are there internal problems with the management too or did you recommend it specifically for the specifications of Dualstow's recent post?

Also, and this may be an ignorant question, but can't you just install KDE Plasma on Pop?

Anyway, sounds like I am looking for a new flavor of Linux now. I am using a Thinkpad T440p and to be honest, Pop has slowed down considerably in the recent OS upgrade. My laptop is a decade old I know, so I wasn't surprised at the slow down.

I just thought it would be powerful enough not to have to use a light flavor of Linux like Lubuntu.

What do you think?

I have always preferred KDE since the early days of SUSE but am now wondering if my computer is too slow. I have an i5 processor and 8 gigs of memory which I could upgrade.

If Pop has a dim future, I guess I would be happy on something like Kubuntu if my machine can run it reasonably fast.

Thanks for your insights.

[Xan]

It has always struck me that Pop is in over its head. I believe it's largely impossible for a small OEM vendor to keep up with its own OS.

And philosophically, I don't want each laptop vendor to have its own OS. That's just asking for trouble.

I'd recommend Debian myself. Have used it for many years, on everything from laptops to servers.

[Pointedstick]

GNOME and KDE are the big kahunas of the open-source software world, but neither have huge offices of people working on them--mostly geographically dispersed volunteers plus some sponsored work from companies that use them or find them to be strategically important. This is something I'm working on changing from within KDE though!

You can install KDE Plasma on Pop, but at that point, why bother? Such a thing would mostly be equivalent to Ubuntu with Plasma, so you might as well use Kubuntu or KDE Neon, which are the same thing but officially supported and better integrated.

Debian and Arch are fine, but they'll give you very DIY experiences without a lot of care towards a new user's experience. They are very suitable for experts who know what they want, but less suitable for someone who does not. This group of people IMO is better suited by a distro that offers a more curated experience, which is in fact Pop's claim to fame. But their extensive customizations to GNOME angered the GNOME people who really prefer their software to be shipped in its very barebones vanilla form, so dramaaaaa!

At this point you might just want to read https://www.reddit.com/r/FindMeADistro/ ... _a_distro/, which I wrote a few years ago and which tries to help people answer this question with clear language and not a lot of jargon.

[Pointedstick]

I have always preferred KDE since the early days of SUSE but am now wondering if my computer is too slow. I have an i5 processor and 8 gigs of memory which I could upgrade.

Should be totally fine; KDE Plasma is quite lightweight these days.

At the moment my favorite KDE distro is Fedora KDE, which I use myself, as does my wife and most of my KDE dev colleagues. It's a really good distro IMO.

[dualstow]

I saw this on the wiki page of the latest version of Ubuntu (Jammy Jellyfish)

DistroWatch reviewer Jesse Smith was critical of the release, writing:

"I think the launch of Ubuntu 22.04 is a clear sign Canonical is much more interested in publishing releases on a set schedule than producing something worthwhile. This version was not ready for release and it's is probably going to be a costly endeavour to maintain this collection of mixed versioned software and mixed display server and mixed designs for a full five years. It's a platform I would recommend avoiding."[375]

It's funny. My main interest in Linux is having something that is not locked down like Apple and also not entangled in licenses like Microsoft. While Linux does provide that, I can't find a single distro that "just works" despite what people say, because no one is particularly interested in making it that way. Sure, if you're a hobbyist or a developer, you can fix things and maybe even enjoy some or all of the process. But...this is why I have a Mac as a main computer and only want a secondary machine to play with Linux. Because it's there.
At least I can go back to LXLE.

I appreciate the replies. Interesting to read everyone's thoughts on Pop OS.

[Smith1776]

I saw this on the wiki page of the latest version of Ubuntu (Jammy Jellyfish)

DistroWatch reviewer Jesse Smith was critical of the release, writing:

"I think the launch of Ubuntu 22.04 is a clear sign Canonical is much more interested in publishing releases on a set schedule than producing something worthwhile. This version was not ready for release and it's is probably going to be a costly endeavour to maintain this collection of mixed versioned software and mixed display server and mixed designs for a full five years. It's a platform I would recommend avoiding."[375]

It's funny. My main interest in Linux is having something that is not locked down like Apple and also not entangled in licenses like Microsoft. While Linux does provide that, I can't find a single distro that "just works" despite what people say, because no one is particularly interested in making it that way. Sure, if you're a hobbyist or a developer, you can fix things and maybe even enjoy some or all of the process. But...this is why I have a Mac as a main computer and only want a secondary machine to play with Linux. Because it's there.
At least I can go back to LXLE.

I appreciate the replies. Interesting to read everyone's thoughts on Pop OS.

This is similar to why I use a Mac as well. I need a Unix OS, and while linux does fulfill that need on paper, it doesn't have sufficient polish.

TINA, kinda like in the markets lol.

[dualstow]

Aha! I thought you were a linux guy for some reason. Well, damn, if you’re using a Mac, I’m calling it quits.
I’ll buy a used Chromebook.

[sweetbthescrivener]

Thanks Pointedstick.

I am testing the live USBs of KDE Fedora and MX Linux Fedora. Both look good and I read that the developers of Fedora have gone out of their way to address battery life out of the box which is a thorn with Pop and a lot of other Linux Distros.

Thanks for the advice.

[PrimalToker]

I prefer openSUSE. Had bad luck with other distros.

[sweetbthescrivener]

Testing the KDE versions of the distros, I realized I have just gotten used to Gnome, and ended up installing the Fedora workstation version. Great advice Pointedstick.

Easy as pie to install, much faster on my old Thinkpad than Pop, in fact, running Pop in Boxes, something else new to me, it is actually faster than Pop was installed on the hard drive.

Also, while I haven't tracked it exactly, the battery seems to be lasting longer than under Pop, which is not surprising since I read that they have optimized Fedora for laptops out of the box.

(I could even install the Pop Cosmic desktop if I want so if I miss the aesthetics of Pop I am cool.)

So I am having fun with it and all the differences with Pop are minor and so far anything missing is easily remedied or unimportant. I appreciate that the fact that so many businesses use it means it will continue to be maintained and not disappear into the night.

Reading a couple of those "10 things to do after you install Fedora" articles has been enough to get this thing running and get me acquainted with some of the shell commands.

Thanks again. It is fun to be playing with a new distro.

[dualstow]

Short memory, i.e. no memory of my October post above.

Bought a pack of new USB drives. GetFedora dot org tells me my computer is just a bit too old to use Media Writer (the installer), which sucks. No old versions mentioned, though I did google for them casually. I need to buy a new machine to conveniently install an OS that I would ultimately run on old machines.

Meanwhile, while my new 2GB keys are fine for Media Writer, they are not large enough for Silverblue, which is what I wanted to try. (I probably shouldn't have asked chatGPT about that the other night without going to the official site, since it's out of date. )

Anyway, the whole thing was a bust. At least I uninstalled VirtualBox from my Mac and went through some old USB keys.

2023 Get new Mac. Install Media Writer. Try Fedora.

[dualstow]

p.s. iSH app is a little linux shell for the ipad/iphone. Success!